Creating new styles for the world

Fortunately, learning is not limited to only a small minority of people anymore; it is not even limited to visiting a school or a university. The Internet makes it possible for us to distribute knowledge at a small price, and is full of resources to expand everyone’s knowledge on an enormous variety of topics.

Since learning is a lifelong task that doesn’t stop after pursuing a certain academic certificate, this round-up is not only dedicated to beginners. It’s for everyone who wants to become an expert in a certain field or is simply curious about the Web and the latest tools and techniques around them.

We hope that this round-up will bring you closer with many of the valuable resources that are available out there. Some are completely free while others can be obtained through quite affordable memberships. You may also be surprised to find that your local college or university is also publishing free classes and courses on all sorts of topics you can think of — make sure to keep an eye open!

Instead of wondering how to style headings, you could look to the style guide for answers. As your design grows and you add elements, putting all of the elements on one page will help to ensure that they look like they were all crafted by the same hand — or at least look consistent. The secondary benefit is that you won’t have to solve the same design problem multiple times.

If you work on a team or for a client, handing off the document to someone else is very easy. You’ve already done the work of specifying how things should look; so, anyone else can step in and pick up where you left off.Speaking of which, if you’ve ever applied a CSS class or ID to an HTML element, then you’ve basically written a style guide — even if you didn’t necessarily formalize it as such.

When you’re presenting a design to a client or team, use the style guide to guide your presentation. A lot of people are talking about style tiles, style prototypes and element collages these days; there’s no reason why a style guide can’t fit in there. It’s a great way to help someone visualize what a product will look like without having to design every screen.

The short answer is: a lot of people. Companies use them; banks generate reams and reams of documentation on how the logo should be implemented and which pixels should go where. While extending a brand across a wide range of products and services is complex, a small company typically does not need such extensive documentation yet still would benefit from consolidating its design standards into a single set of guidelines, a style guide.